We Should Fully Fund Amtrak, Not Sell Off Pieces of It Like Scrap

The U.S. needs reliable passenger trains to complement our highways and airlines — not more corporate handouts

In January, the Amtrak Reform Council (ARC) reported that Amtrak had failed to meet the deadline for self-sufficiency that Congress gave them in 1997, and ARC unveiled their plan to privatize our passenger rails.

Charles W. Jones
International President Emeritus

Their "cure" for America's ailing intercity passenger rail system is worse than the disease as diagnosed by Congress: poor service caused by lack of competition and unprofitability, which leads to government subsidies.

ARC's plan calls for selling "exclusive rights" to each of Amtrak's routes to a private company, which would be eligible for government subsidies for operating losses and capital improvements. Since "exclusive rights" means no competition, and because government subsidies will continue, one has to ask what the plan accomplishes.

Of course, the answer should be obvious -- it provides another way for Congress to move money from taxpayers' pockets onto the bottom lines of private companies. We should have expected no less. ARC was created in 1997 by the same pro-privatization and deregulation Congress that made Enron's financial shenanigans and the California power shortages possible.